- Setting Selection Preferences
- Making Selections
- Using the Clipboard
- Resizing Graphic Elements
- Positioning Graphic Elements
- Flipping, Rotating, and Skewing
- Distorting Graphic Elements
- Modifying Fills and Strokes
- Modifying Shapes: Natural Drawing Tools
- Modifying Shapes: Bzier Tools
- Modifying Primitive-Shape Paths
- Converting Shape Types
Using the Clipboard
Flash supports the standard cut, copy, and paste operations familiar to most computer users. Flash also provides special pasting operations for graphic elements; you can paste items in the center of the Stage or in their original location.
To perform basic editing operations:
- Select the elements you want to delete, cut, or copy.
- From the Edit menu (Figure 4.15), choose one of the following:
- To delete the selection, choose Clear, or press the Delete key.
- To cut the selection, choose Cut, or press -X (Mac) or Ctrl-X (Windows).
- To copy the selection, choose Copy, or press -C (Mac) or Ctrl-C (Windows).
Figure 4.15 The Edit menu offers all the basic cut, copy, and paste commands for working with graphic elements.
To paste the Clipboard's contents in the center of the window:
- Choose Edit > Paste in Center, or press -V (Mac) or Ctrl-V (Windows).
Flash pastes the Clipboard's contents in the center of the current view (Figure 4.16).
Figure 4.16 When you copy a selected graphic element (top) and choose Edit > Paste in Center, Flash pastes a copy of the element from the Clipboard to the center of the current view (bottom).
To paste the Clipboard contents in their original location:
- Choose Edit > Paste in Place, or press Shift--V (Mac) or Ctrl-Shift-V (Windows). Flash pastes the Clipboard contents to their original location on the Stage. When creating animation, it can be crucial to maintain the position of elements you cut and paste between layers and frames.